Should Pierce County elect its sheriff? How about having a nonpartisan chief of elections?

Those are just a couple of the questions the elected panel reviewing
Pierce County government likely will put to voters come November.

The 21-member Charter Review Commission is more than halfway done with
its work. So far, it has tentatively proposed three changes to the
county’s constitution and has decided to analyze eight more issues.

Background: The commissioners, who are not paid, were elected last
fall. They launched an examination of the 1980 home-rule charter – the
county’s equivalent of the U.S. Constitution – in January. They have
until June 30 to wrap up their work.

Why it matters: The voter-approved charter replaced the three-member
county commission with an executive and a seven-member council. The
idea was to balance power between them. The charter calls for the
election of a commission to review the document’s adequacy at least
every 10 years. Pierce County is one of six counties in Washington
governed by a home-rule charter. The others are King, Snohomish,
Clallam, San Juan and Whatcom counties. The rest are considered
noncharter counties, which are guided more directly by state law.

How to get involved: The commission meets Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. at the
Pierce Transit Training Center, 3720 96th St. S.W. in Lakewood. The
commission collects public comments during its weekly meetings. For
more information, contact Julie King, commission clerk, 360-802-3708 or
[email protected]

Three proposals: The commission has tentatively proposed the following:

• Changing the job of sheriff from an appointed position to an elected one.

• Boosting the council’s term limits from two to three four-year
terms, keeping the executive at two four-year terms and eliminating
term limits for county prosecutor, auditor – the county’s elections
chief – and assessor-treasurer.

• Making the positions of prosecutor, auditor and
assessor-treasurer nonpartisan but keeping the council and the
executive as partisan offices.

Under consideration: So far, the commission has committed to examining
eight more issues. Some are further along than others. They are:

• Adopting “instant runoff voting,” an election system under
which voters cast ballots that allow them to rank all candidates for an
office in their order of preference, rather than casting a single vote.
All votes would be counted in rounds until a majority winner is found.
If there is no majority winner, then the candidate with the fewest No.
1 votes would be eliminated. Then, all ballots would be recounted using
the highest ranked candidates still in the race, meaning the second
choices for some voters would be considered along with the first
choices for everybody else. This process would continue until a
candidate had a majority.

• Creating an “accountability office” or some other means to
provide formal citizen oversight of county programs and spending.

• Boosting the ability of voters to use the charter to file
initiatives and to file referendums against enacted ordinances.

• Increasing the time the council has to examine the executive’s proposed budget.

• Granting the executive line-item veto authority.

• Moving the county to odd-year elections.

• Reviewing how the redistricting process divides up the county to make up council districts for elections.

• Examining issues surrounding eminent domain.

Wrapping things up: The commission will review all of its proposals a
second time in June before taking a final vote to submit measures to
voters on the Nov. 7 ballot.

Any proposals by the commission will go directly to Pierce County
Auditor Pat McCarthy who would place the proposals, each with its own
ballot title, on the November ballot.